479. How to FEAR-LESSLY Speak Up For Yourself

On this episode, Nellie emphasizes the importance of women speaking up for themselves as a form of self-love and self-respect. She shares her journey of overcoming fear and trauma to assert her voice, highlighting small, everyday actions like correcting an incorrect order or expressing needs as building blocks for confidence. She advocates for starting small, emphasizing the power of heart-to-heart conversations and the need for consent in discussions. Nellie also stresses the significance of taking inspired action and honoring one's thoughts and ideas, ultimately leading to a happier, fear-less life.

We will touch on:

• Finding Quiet Time and the Importance of Speaking Up
• Overcoming People Pleasing and Emotional Suppression
• Starting Small and Building Confidence
• The Power of Heart-to-Heart Conversations
• Taking Inspired Action and Honoring Your Voice
• Expanding Your Comfort Zone and Reducing Resentment
• The Role of Fear in Decision-Making

Let's Take Some Action:

• Speak up for yourself in small situations, such as correcting an order or speaking up about a haircut.
• Have "heart-to-heart" conversations with people you care about, with consent and a plan for moving forward.
• Honor your own ideas and inspired actions, and take action on them rather than avoiding them out of fear.

Thank you to Rebecca Hallbach Paciorek with Authors' Allies for sponsoring today’s episode!!!!
Unlock 10 Powerful Book Marketing Steps: Craft a winning strategy in mere minutes with our FREE step-by-step ebook. Download & watch your readership soar! → Unleash Your Book's Marketing Potential! https://mailchi.mp/2809c529966d/10stepsnellie

Transcript

Unknown: 1:23

Going for drives or walks is just seeming like in this season of life, that is the only way I can fully guarantee that I'm going to have quiet time. So perfect opportunity to chat with you. And this topic, I think, is really important, especially as women, I don't think we speak up enough. And I am a student of speaking up, especially in the last year for myself, I feel like I have spoken up for myself more in the past 365 days than I have in a really, really long time. So I'm excited to share just a little bit about what has worked for me and give you some hope and inspiration. So we are talking how to fearlessly, and I should say fear dash less. So we're going to fear less when it comes to speaking up for ourselves. Because it is important, if you take anything away from this episode, I want you to take away that speaking up for yourself is the ultimate form of self love and self worth and self compassion, self respect, because it is no one else's job. Now it got really dark. It is no one else's job to speak up for you, that it is yours. You really do get to be your best advocate, and that is not always easy, especially if you have some wounds around speaking up, if it has not, if it hasn't always felt safe to speak up for yourself, but your voice matters and your words matter. And so even if, even if there is some fear around it, or trauma, fear and trauma, because they can absolutely Connect. It doesn't have to be your forever. And I love the saying you know that it's not your fault that the trauma happened to you, but it is your job to heal. And so the more you heal, the more you will speak up for yourself. And so if you're, if you're in a constant state of, like, oh my gosh, I am. You know, you don't love confrontation. You don't love to speak up for yourself. I have some tips for you, because this has definitely been an area before implementing what I call the naked method was not easy for me. Like, literally, I would, I don't want to say avoid, but I would do everything, everything that I could, to be a people pleaser, to make so many people happy. So that way I wouldn't have to, like, be in a situation where I would have to speak up for myself, like I just stuffed and stuffed and stuffed my emotions down and it, you know, it gets the best of you, and it's like you you realize, at least I did that, like I'm stuck with me for the rest of my life, like I can't control people staying in my life, or even like, I guess, coming into my life, I can, but staying in my life, I don't have, you know, full control. So I would much rather be really happy with myself, like being me and myself, and then knowing that everyone that chooses to stick around really likes the real me, whether it's business or personal or a mixture of both, like, I want people to just like me for who I am. And I think that that like, I think everyone deserves that. And so in order to do that, you have to speak up for yourself. You have to be authentically you. And that, again, is not always easy, but we can take baby steps. So I want to share just like, a couple tips with you to like, you know, either get the party started and or like, you know, up your game, because I think there's always room for improvement. And since this month is all about fearing less, I just want you to have this in your mind, because speaking up for yourself is just so powerful. So shout out to Rebecca with authors allies for sponsoring this episode, she is on a mission to help authors get their voice out there, which I think is so important and so needed, and really help you market your book. A lot of authors love writing books, but then they're like, but now what? And that's really where Rebecca comes in, so make sure you contact her and learn all the ways that she can support you. She can do things for you. You can be in her super affordable membership, and she's got digital downloads and all of the things. So make sure you contact Rebecca with others allies. So I want to give you a couple tips. So first and foremost, you deserve to. Speak up for yourself, like I said, it is the one of the highest forms of self love. You can't see me right now because it's super dark, but it's not always easy. We can start small. So literally, I went and got the family some food, and the order was incorrect, so I spoke up for myself, right? So that's a small example. I'll turn on a light here in a second, because I'm back in the neighborhood. But you can start small. Now, sometimes we can not speak up and be like, Oh, well, it's not a big deal, but it is a big deal, because, again, like, people are not mind readers, so if I would have just taken the food and then walked away and been mad, you know, at some point you've got to take the responsibility, like, if I'm choosing not to speak up, like, can You still be mad? Yes, but is it 100% fair? No, because you didn't give somebody the opportunity to at least try to make it right, in my humble opinion. So we can't control what other people do after we speak up, but at the very least, I feel like speaking up for yourself builds so much true confidence because you did your part, and that is huge, because if you don't do your part, then you'll never know what what could happen, right? And you know, there's big moments to speak up for yourself, yourself, and there's, you know, small moments, but I think you can start with the small stuff, and it can really, really make a huge impact. Let's see if I can turn on some lights. Here. I'm in my neighborhood now, so I'll just park outside my house and we'll just chat. I'm not, not avoiding going back in. I don't know what you're talking about. No, just kidding. It's just been crazy with two kids. So okay, so start small. It don't go right to a big conversation, go to something small, and it will build some confidence, and you feel so much better. I'll never forget when I had, like, super short pixie hair. I was at grade clips, and I'm very, like, I I'm very particular about my hair, all this, all the styles I've had, but obviously going to Great Clips. There's only so much that, like, you get what you pay for at Great Clips. And the gal that was cutting my hair that one time, like, I literally had the shortest, spikiest hair, but I still was really particular, like I liked this, the the like the faux hawk in the front to be longer than everything else. And so I'm sitting in her chair, this was a couple years ago, and she just keeps cutting, and she keeps cutting and she keeps cutting, and I'm literally looking in the mirror as she's doing it, and I go, I should speak up for myself. I should speak up. I should say something. And I didn't. I didn't. I walked out of there with a smile on my face. I paid, I think I even cried when I got in the car, because I felt like, I look like a boy. And I could have, I could have stopped it. I could have stopped her in her tracks, and said, Okay, you're like, you're cutting it too too short. It's too short. Stop. And I didn't. And so again, that's the power of speaking up for yourself. Is like so much power in speaking up. And we were so afraid of either hurting somebody's feelings or confrontation, but we can't live in fear like we cannot choose I want. What I desire for us is to live less in fear. I want us to make less decisions out of fear, because her feelings could have been hurt, right? But at the end of the day, that can still totally be valid, and I can stop her from cutting my hair because it wasn't what I wanted, right? Like, the duality is so powerful, and I think that that's really what I've worked on in the last year, is like someone can be upset with you, but you could be proud that you spoke up for yourself. Obviously you could always have kindness, um, but like, everyone can have their experience. You just get to decide what you want your experience to be. So we're going to start small. Now, when it gets to the bigger conversations, I do believe that there is power in you asking someone else. So this is more like, if there's something like heavy that you want to share, I'm really big on heart to hearts. I used to call them clearing conversations and that I don't know if I love the vibe of that, and this year has been all about the vibe. So if I really care about some someone, I. I'm leaning more towards calling it a heart to heart, because if I care enough about somebody and I want to have that conversation, it's because I want to continue to have a relationship with them. Sometimes there is a time and a place to not speak up. So like, that's where it can get tricky. But you like, if you're choosing not to speak up in a situation. To me, that means you don't want to have a relationship with that person, because the only way we can have a true, healthy relationship is if we speak up for ourselves, so that can help you decide, should you speak up? Should you not speak up? You don't always have to speak up immediately. Sometimes our emotions get the best of us, and we need time to process and regulate, and then you can come back. So it's not to say that, like, you can't come back to somebody and say, like, Can I have a heart to heart? So I'm like, a really firm believer on consent, especially in conversations, that person may say no, that person may say not, right now, that person may say yes. And so us having that, like, again, healthy conversation, and everyone's like wanting to be in the conversation can be so much more productive than like you coming at somebody and not having that, that consent, that permission, so that can be huge. Now, when it comes to like us, wanting to continue to have a relationship with somebody, when we speak up for ourselves, I think it's really important to then decide again in a healthy relationship, how do you want to move forward? Because, is this just a situation where you need to, like, share your voice and how you felt, and there's nothing really that needs to like change, or is it like you speak up and then you share moving forward? Like, what the the plan is what the protocol is, and it will depend. And speaking up doesn't always have to be like your feelings were hurt or you're upset or frustrated. Speaking up can literally even be you have a social media post idea and you want to, like, speak up and share about it, right then go do it like one of my biggest things that I keep saying to myself is, anytime I have, like, inspired ideas or I just, like, want to go do something as much as I can, I'm honoring just going and doing it and being detached from the outcome. Because, again, highest form of self love is honoring you, honoring your voice, honoring your thoughts and your ideas. Now, do we need to act on everything immediately to have, like, the ultimate form of self love? No, but I want you to do it more than you're not doing it. So if you have this inspired idea to create an offer, then I want you to like, go talk about it again. Use your voice if you need help. We get to speak up if you need to understand something more. Because you you don't, you don't fully get it, we get to speak up. And so it can literally start as small as this is what I need, right? I'm unsure what I need. I am frustrated, I'm overwhelmed. I need help, right? Like just you even saying a few words to somebody can really make a world of a difference that way. We don't get in the the slippery slope of everyone assuming that they know what you're thinking and feeling, and then you getting frustrated that people aren't honoring you and your needs and your wants and your desires. So like us taking the personal responsibility of like, if it's to be it's up to me, like happiness is an internal job, and I think a part of your happiness is speaking up for yourself, is taking inspired action, and so it's no one else's job but ourselves. Now again, you can always ask for help. You can always speak up and ask for help. So you don't have to do it alone, but like you've gotta be the one to get the party started and keep the party going. And it it's everything. It makes you feel so powerful. It makes you feel so powerful. So if this has not come easy to you, or it has not always felt safe for you to do this, I just want you to start small with maybe an order that you you got, and it's not correct. Maybe you're getting your hair cut. Maybe when you are, you know, buying something at the store, and you thought it was supposed to be on sale, and you like, you speak up and say something. So start small, expand your comfort zone, but what you'll find is. When we speak up more and more and more for ourselves, it literally creates so much relief, because then you don't hold on to resentment. Resentment is a very low energy. It's a very heavy energy, and so when you don't hold on to that resentment, that frustration, subconsciously, you feel so much lighter. Like, have you ever had a really good cry? And the next day, you wake up and you're like, Man, I feel like 1000 pounds lighter. It's a release of your emotions. You are supposed to release your emotions. And so a huge part of that is you speaking up. You can do it in a very kind way. You can do it in a very tactical, trauma informed way. But we've got to do it, and we get to do it more and more and more. And so start small, keep working towards it, and just know that you can always choose. Should I speak up for myself? Should I not and just make sure again, what can really help you in those bigger moments is, am I making my decision out of fear? And if the answer is yes, then we get to choose again, because it is not worth living a life filled with fear, and it may take you a little bit of time to work through that and strategize, but make less and less decisions out of fear, and you'll live a happier, happier, happier life. So I love you so much. Share when you speak up for yourself next, I would love to know and just know that you deserve for your voice to be heard, and it will feel more natural the more you do it. So go speak up for yourself. I love you. Do.